Edwin Parker "Cy" Twombly Jr. (1928-2011) was was an American painter, sculptor and photographer born in Lexington, Virginia. From 1948 to 1952, he studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Washington and Lee University, Lexington; the Art Students League, New York; and, Black Mountain College in North Carolina. His best-known works are typically large-scale, freely-scribbled, calligraphic and graffiti-like works on solid fields of neutral colors. His later paintings and works on paper shifted toward "romantic symbolism." Twombly often quoted poets such as Stéphane Mallarmé, Rainer Maria Rilke, and John Keats, as well as classical myths and allegories, in his works. Permanent collections of Twombly's art can be found in modern art museums globally, including the Menil Collection in Houston, the Tate Modern in London, New York's Museum of Modern Art and Munich's Museum Brandhorst. He was commissioned for a ceiling at the Musée du Louvre in Paris and died on July 5, 2011 in Rome.